Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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11. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide a date for when his revised housing plan will be completed and published. [35826/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The programme for Government commits to the introduction of a new, all-of-government national housing plan to follow Housing for All, underpinned by multi-annual funding. This plan will take a whole-of-government approach, as Housing for All did. My Department is engaging across government to agree the high-level measures to be included in the plan. They must be supported by the required funding in the national development plan. The timing of its publication will be aligned with the outcome of the national development plan review process currently being undertaken by my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Sector Reform and Digitalisation. I am committed to its finalisation and publication as soon as possible.

Meanwhile the important work of this Government proceeds, and as Minister supporting the delivery of new homes, it is my key priority, and I am looking at using every means available to do so. Almost €6.8 billion, a record level of funding, has been provided by the Government for the delivery of housing in 2025. In recent months, the revised national planning framework was approved, An Coimisiún Pleanála was established with a new chairperson appointed and rent pressure zones have been expanded and extended nationwide as part of measures to secure the supply of rental accommodation and promote investment in housing.

I have also recently issued the next call for expressions under the croí cónaithe cities scheme. The new national housing plan, which will be published in the coming months, will build on the measures we have introduced to date and set us on a sustainable path to meeting our housing needs nationally. We do need the national development plan first. It is simply common sense publish a housing plan that includes the NDP, finalised after its publication. Then we can publish the new national housing plan.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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In response to an earlier question, the Minister made a comment about bringing forward solutions. We can come in here and fight every week - we could fight for the next five years - but we have taken the decision to come in and try to work with the Government and bring forward solutions. Three weeks ago, I brought forward a solution. While it will not fix the housing crisis, it would bring in thousands of empty and boarded-up council houses that are owned by the State. We now own enough boarded-up council properties that we could house every family living in homelessness accommodation. That could be achieved. All we need is funding and staffing for local authorities. We also need local authorities to get back to building houses directly. I ask the Minister to reverse the decisions taken by Fianna Fáil in the 1990s to take local authorities out of building homes and to return us to a system that worked. On a final point, the Government slashed funding to the tenant in situ scheme. I am dealing with families who are still feeling the effects of that.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy's proposal a number of weeks ago was simply to write blank cheques for local authorities. That is not a solution. We have to manage our finances and we have only a certain amount of funding. We want those voids brought back in but, as the Deputy will recall, one of the properties was a property that could not be let because it had not had a stairs for five years. There is no reason or rationale for that to be the case.

On the rest of the housing plan, we will have this housing plan done as quickly as possible. We have gone back to building social houses. We are encouraging local authorities to build as much social housing as possible. Today we published the delivery rate of various local authorities. It is extraordinary to see with some local authorities, even side by side to each other, how some can deliver as little as 3% own-build housing while others are above 40%. The ability is there. The local authorities that are actually delivering large amounts of social housing own-builds show that the Government is backing the local authorities where those local authorities are determined to build those social houses. We will continue to back those but we want to encourage the other local authorities to rise up to meet the top standard that some of those other local authorities that are delivering.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister talks about local authorities delivering on target and delivering social housing and cost-rental and affordable housing. Cork City Council is probably one of the best locals authorities in the State for delivering social and cost-rental and affordable housing, and yet the housing list goes up. It is because the Minister's Government has set targets so low that even when local authorities do hit the targets they are supposed to hit, the numbers of people looking for social housing are going up. The homelessness figures are going up every month. I believe the figure we are at now is 4,844 children, off the top of my head. I asked the Minister's predecessor, Darragh O'Brien, how many children must become homeless before he and this Government will accept that the policy has failed. I do not want it to get to 5,000 and I do not think the Minister does either, but 5,000 children will be homeless in the lifetime of this Government. We were in here two weeks ago with a cross-party proposal in relation to the Raise the Roof rally and fixing the housing emergency. This is an emergency and the Minister is not treating it like one. I ask him sincerely to grab this Government and say, "This is a housing emergency, so stand up and deliver the solutions that we need."

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am treating it as an emergency. The number seeking social housing is increasing, as it is for cost-rental and affordable and private housing, because the population of this country is exploding as a result of the successful economic steerage of this country. It is a good thing that our population is increasing as a result of our economy. It puts more pressure on me and the Government to deliver even more housing and we are going to do that to meet the increasing population needs. I acknowledge that we need more social housing. There is no question about that. I am determined to deliver more. That is why today I got Government agreement to end the four-stage process and the three-stage and two-stage processes. We will have only a single-stage process for local authorities to deliver social housing so that those local authorities that are determined to build social housing will be able to do so. We have increased the ceiling from €8 billion to €200 billion, which is a significant increase as well. The local authorities that want to build can build. They can build at the moment, but now they will be able to build even more quickly.